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Our settings have been updated and we have been able to register our first girl. I believe we are the only Pack in our council doing this at this time, but there are other early Packs showing some interest.

Next up parents meeting and more homework on condensing a program down into 5 months.

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Following. One of our Troop ASMs told me last night that our "council" is an early adopter. His use of the word. As of now, I'm not aware of any girls that have asked to join our Pack. (I have boys who are Webelos and Tenderfoot, and a daughter who will be joining Venturers in the fall.) As I'm not involved at the council level, I'm not sure what level of interest they've received or what their plans are, but will keep an eye on this should it arise for us.

One of our biggest Pack issues is in not having an adequate number of adults who want to be leaders. It was a huge struggle to get a Tiger den leader this year, so they got a very late start, and we only found a replacement for our Bear leader (who quit last year) two months ago. It will be interesting to see if 1) we get an interest from girls and 2) if so, how many of their parents care enough to pitch in.

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Following. One of our Troop ASMs told me last night that our "council" is an early adopter. His use of the word. As of now, I'm not aware of any girls that have asked to join our Pack. (I have boys who are Webelos and Tenderfoot, and a daughter who will be joining Venturers in the fall.) As I'm not involved at the council level, I'm not sure what level of interest they've received or what their plans are, but will keep an eye on this should it arise for us.

One of our biggest Pack issues is in not having an adequate number of adults who want to be leaders. It was a huge struggle to get a Tiger den leader this year, so they got a very late start, and we only found a replacement for our Bear leader (who quit last year) two months ago. It will be interesting to see if 1) we get an interest from girls and 2) if so, how many of their parents care enough to pitch in.

What I am starting to see is several dads who only had daughters volunteer to be leaders. One was a former ASM, Eagle Scout and OA member. He only had girls so stopped his involvement if BSA and is now interested in volunteering as his girls are getting involved. We are also seeing other parents volunteer as they are talking of having their daughters join.

Right now we have the possibility of adding 26 scouts to our pack of 71 over the next 2 weeks. 4 are boys and 22 girls (2 boys joined along with their sisters). 7 of the girls are from a separate school who’s Pack is not adding girls at this time. So far, there are 5 new parents volunteering to be leaders in our Pack along with these 22 potential scouts.

I don’t expect all to join right now, but it does seem that there are parents out there willing to volunteer along with having their daughters join.

I will say adding this program midstream has been a lot of work, but I think it is helping us understand how we should add girls to our Pack Early on I was one concerned that we couldn’t do separate girl only dens due to volunteers. What I am seeing is that we should be able to maintain separate dens (with the additional volunteers I am seeing) and there are benefits. So, going into the fall we will be enforcing separate Girl/boy dens.

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...Right now we have the possibility of adding 26 scouts to our pack of 71 over the next 2 weeks. 4 are boys and 22 girls (2 boys joined along with their sisters). 7 of the girls are from a separate school who’s Pack is not adding girls at this time. So far, there are 5 new parents volunteering to be leaders in our Pack along with these 22 potential scouts...

That's encouraging, especially seeing new volunteers. And a pretty substantial group of potential new scouts. Excellent news from an early-adopter pack.

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Had first parents meeting last night and there was a lot of pushback regarding separate dens. The general consensus was that why is BSA adding girls to only keep them segregated. Why wouldn’t the girls just go to Girl Scouts. We got through the discussion but I have a feeling the separate den wall will fall in the future.

We also have several current GSUSA scouts coming on board and it is clear that this decision will cause loss in the ranks of GSUSA. Not only are scouts but leaders are looking to transition. I dug in a bit and the two comments I heard were GSUSA program can be boring at times and BSA seems more grass roots. Im not sure if that is BSA’s intention or simply how we run our Pack.

First Girl den meeting next week and I expect to see several applications in over the weekend.

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Had first parents meeting last night and there was a lot of pushback regarding separate dens. The general consensus was that why is BSA adding girls to only keep them segregated. Why wouldn’t the girls just go to Girl Scouts. We got through the discussion but I have a feeling the separate den wall will fall in the future.

We also have several current GSUSA scouts coming on board and it is clear that this decision will cause loss in the ranks of GSUSA. Not only are scouts but leaders are looking to transition. I dug in a bit and the two comments I heard were GSUSA program can be boring at times and BSA seems more grass roots. Im not sure if that is BSA’s intention or simply how we run our Pack.

First Girl den meeting next week and I expect to see several applications in over the weekend.

I am good friends with a GSUSA leader (and former professional) who was congratulating me on Son#2 getting his Eagle. I mentioned (bragged) a few of his highlights and she asked about what an SPL was which led to a discussion of our Troops (sometimes watered-down) youth led mixed age patrol method. She was shocked, just shocked that we trusted them enough to plan and carry out things on their own and while she could see it would be chaotic it would be much more helpful for leadership development than the GSUSA program. She then told me to quit poaching their girls.

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With a smile on her face, or not? In other words, was she serious or kidding?

If she was serious... whatever happened to the free enterprise system.

Half joking. She knew I had no control over "headquarters" did; she had her own GS gripes. She has "her group" and they are all aging out. Then she will be done so it doesn't really matter. Anyway she introduced "brownie bite fire starters" to our Troop via my boys. You know the old story: Boy tries to start fire on front driveway. Boy meets girl. Girl says why don't use a 'brownie bite".

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Half joking. She knew I had no control over "headquarters" did; she had her own GS gripes. She has "her group" and they are all aging out. Then she will be done so it doesn't really matter. Anyway she introduced "brownie bite fire starters" to our Troop via my boys. You know the old story: Boy tries to start fire on front driveway. Boy meets girl. Girl says why don't use a 'brownie bite".

I don't want to send this thread too far off track, but: What is a brownie bite fire starter? I've never heard that term.